Month: November 2012

Countdown to gridlock (I hope)

by digby

Looks like they’re readying Plan B:

White House officials and Congressional leaders hoping to stave off — or at least postpone — a “fiscal cliff” threatening to send the country into economic disarray could, in typical Washington fashion, opt for a mixture of action and delay in the hopes that this time, another year will give them the time to find a longterm solution.

Negotiators say that an option that has been discussed, though only preliminarily, would be an agreement requiring an upfront “down payment” revenues and spending cuts, the creation of a process aimed at creating a long-term solution and a back-end “trigger” that would impose severe cuts to spending, particularly on entitlements while increasing taxes.

That’s just one possible conclusion, people involved in the talks told BuzzFeed, to negotiations that got off to a slow start this week, with neither Democrats nor Republicans willing to show much of their hand in the opening days.

I suppose that’s better than nothing, but this isn’t good:

But with only a few weeks between now and the end of the year, congressional aides in both parties expressed cautious hope that a deal could ultimately come together to punt the bulk of the problem down the road for a year while immediately raising revenues and locking in dramatic reforms to entitlement spending.

“Reforms” is a euphemism for screwing average people, as you know. I haven’t seen them described as “dramatic” before, but in this case it’s a euphemism for “painful.” I’m not sure what they mean by “locking in” but experience and logic holds that it means about as much as a pinky swear. Whatever.

I know that the administration doesn’t want to delay the expiration of the high end tax cuts, but I honestly don’t think it’s the most important thing in the world if they do. This economy is weak and if we do go back into recession (or even slow growth) after these tax hikes are enacted, the moneyed elites will ensure that “taxing the job creators” gets the blame. It’s not worth the price of “dramatic reforms” to entitlement programs and it won’t create one job or help one foreclosed homeowner.

Kicking the can down the road isn’t the worst thing that could happen.

Update: Greg disagrees and makes some valid points. I think I’m just more cynical about the Democrats’ willingness to go over the fiscal cliff. I’m far more worried that they’ll agree to something horrible to avoid it. Therefore, I’m guessing can kicking is the better option.

But I’m fine with it if they just tell the Republicans to take a hike and offer up the new Obama tax cuts on January first. There’s just something about the look in the leaderships’ eyes when the subject comes up that makes me think they would rather eat carpet tacks than do that.

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Remember this bit of “centrist” stupidity?

by David Atkins

As the Very Serious Centrists prepare to force feed America its austerity medicine poison in order to please the Wall Street Bond Lords, it might be a good idea to remember what the same centrists were saying just a few short months ago:

Despite doubts among some Democrats about the wisdom of attacking Mr. Romney’s business career, Obama commercials painting him as a ruthless executive who pursued profits at the expense of jobs are starting to make an impact on some undecided voters, according to strategists from both sides, who differ on whether they are causing any substantial damage…

Mr. Obama’s acute focus on Bain has drawn complaints from Democrats, including high-profile surrogates like Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark, who said in May that he found the attacks nauseating. And even as the liberal “super PAC” Priorities USA Action joined the attack with similar ads, some Democrats said they had concluded that the attacks were not working anyway.

There is no reason to listen to any of these people. Ever.

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Headline ‘O The Day

by digby

From Gallup:

Petraeus’ Image Takes Hit, Still More Positive Than Negative

But what will we tell the children?

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Pray for gridlock, part XXII

by digby

How welcome it is to find out that you are not completely insane after all. Via Felix Salmon

Believe it or not, the federal deficit has fallen faster over the past three years than it has in any such stretch since demobilization from World War II.
In fact, outside of that post-WWII era, the only time the deficit has fallen faster was when the economy relapsed in 1937, turning the Great Depression into a decade-long affair. [emphasis mine.]

If U.S. history offers any guide, we are already testing the speed limits of a fiscal consolidation that doesn’t risk backfiring. That’s why the best way to address the fiscal cliff likely is to postpone it.

While long-term deficit reduction is important and deficits remain very large by historical standards, the reality is that the government already has its foot on the brakes.

In this sense, the “fiscal cliff” metaphor is especially poor. The government doesn’t need to apply the brakes with more force to avoid disaster. Rather the “cliff” is an artificial one that has sprung up because the two parties are able to agree on so little.

Hopefully, they will agree, as they did at the end of 2010, to embrace their disagreement for a bit longer.

It is to be fervently hoped for.

The Third Way continues its attempt to undermine the American people

by David Atkins

The Third Way, that crew of corporatist “New” Democrats that rose from the ashes of the defunct DLC, is attempting to make the case that voters answering inane questions in predictable ways about the deficit means that people want see to cuts to Medicare and Social Security that they clearly don’t want.

Greg Sargent has the details:

A coalition of unions — SEIU, AFSCME, and the NEA — has released new ads today pressuring Dems not to give in to GOP demands for deep spending cuts. The ads — which target Dem senators Mark Udall, Michael Bennet, Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, and Mark Warner in their states — make the key point that the best way to reduce the deficit is to invest in job creation and grow the economy, and they demand that the senators protect Medicare, Medicaid and education. They insist that Dems “continue to stand up for us,” rather than cut “programs that families rely on most.”

This comes as some self-described “centrist” Democrats are already making noise about not necessarily supporting the Obama plan to raise taxes on the rich. And the centrist group Third Way, in a message intended to generate inside-the-Beltway chatter, released a new poll supposedly showing support for a bipartisan deficit “deal.”

What you’re really seeing here is a battle over the meaning of the election. Labor and liberals contend the message was clear: At a time of runaway inequality, the rich must sacrifice more to bring down the deficit; the American people do not want any change in the core mission of Medicare; and they continue to support a strong safety net and an expanded role for government in spurring growth and social mobility. After all, the election was a straight up clash of ideological visions over tax fairness, the proper scope of governmental involvement in the economy and in reducing inequality, and the question of whether we should preserve the social contract underlying the major progressive reforms of the 20th Century. One side won decisively — liberalism.

The centrist reading of the election is harder to explain. The Third Way poll seems designed to create the impression that the public yearns for a centrist deficit agreement. It tells us Obama voters support a mix of tax increases and spending cuts as part of a “bipartisan” deficit deal and that they want lawmakers to “fix” entitlements. But so what? A mix of tax increases and spending cuts is the liberal-Democratic position. The argument is one over degree. No one is arguing for no spending cuts whatsoever or doing nothing on entitlements or the deficit. Rather, the left wants a fiscal cliff solution that doesn’t take benefits away from those who need them and doesn’t undermine the core mission of social programs and the safety net. On this, the voters have spoken clearly.

That they have. But the conservadems are going to continue to insist that what this election really was all about was a deep-seated desire to make grandma eat cat food.

Listen to the incredible bias of this Third Way “poll”:

When asked whether they believed that “Democrats and Republicans both need to make real compromises to come to an agreement on fixing the deficit,” 80% said that statement described their views extremely well (9 or 10 on a 0-10 point scale), making this the most strongly supported statement in the entire poll. That group included 75% of Obama Liberals, 78% of Obama Democrats, 79% of women who voted for the President, 90% of African Americans, 83% of Latinos, and 69% of voters aged 18–34.
When asked which concerned them more, that President Obama will compromise
too much with Republicans to get things done or that he will stick too rigidly to his positions and not get things done, only 39% of Obama voters worry that the President might compromise too much with Republicans. And on the deficit specifically, only 40% are concerned that the President will agree to a deal that cuts too much spending. In fact, 31% of President Obama’s coalition says they worry he won’t do enough to reduce the deficit.

Yes, when the battle is set between “compromise and get things done” versus “don’t compromise and don’t get things done”, everybody loves the former answer. Surprise! Just as long as you don’t define what “getting things done” means, or what the compromises are.

Or this:

We asked, “Which would be better for the country? The President and Congress make changes to fix Social Security and Medicare? OR The President and Congress make no changes to Social Security and Medicare?” Seventy-nine percent of the Obama Coalition said the first outcome would be better for the country—only 17% wanted no changes made to these programs.

Notice the words “fix” and “change.” No mention of direct benefit cuts or raising retirement age (which is what Third Way “fixes” are), because those results might conflict with the corporatist narrative.

As the Republicans continue to make themselves a rump regional party of old white men, the battle to defend the middle class is increasingly not one of Democrat versus Republican, but of the defenders of the middle class against the Third Way and its maleficent wolves in sheep’s clothing.

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I know you are an election thief but what am I?


by digby

You knew this was going to happen didn’t you?:

Yep, the “skewed polls” guy has put it all together.  Obama stole the election. With the help of the blahs.

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Let’s do the wrong thing at the wrong time, shall we?

by digby

Via CNBC:

Nouriel Roubini warned on Monday that certain key developments would exacerbate the downside risks to global growth in 2013.

“Until now, the recessionary fiscal drag has been concentrated in the euro zone periphery and the U.K.. But now it is permeating the euro zone’s core,” Roubini wrote. “And in the U.S., even if President Barack Obama and the Republicans in Congress agree on a budget plan that avoids the looming “fiscal cliff,” spending cuts and tax increases will invariably lead to some drag on growth in 2013 – at least 1 percent of GDP.”

Roubini said the rally in global markets that begun in July was now running out of steam as global growth slows and valuations look stretched.

“Price/earnings ratios are now high, while growth in earnings per share is slackening, and will be subject to further negative surprises as growth and inflation remain low.

I know — let’s have some austerity! That’ll help.

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Dreaming of revenge

by digby

This fine fellow was a Bush appointee and a major Romney advisor:

To Investigate Benghazi, “Use Rendition” To Put Suspects In Guantanamo Bay And “Try A Little Gentle Persuasion”

It’s hard to keep up with the ever ratcheting up hysteria over this issue but what Bolton is saying is that we should be issuing “retribution” in order that everyone in the world knows that they cannot attack an American anywhere in the world without expecting hell to be unleashed on their own people.

Just as Whitewater was a bizaroworld version of Watergate, I think Benghazi is supposed to be the bizarroworld version of the 9/11. It’s pathetic but it’s all they have. And it looks as though they’re going for it.

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Scary lady


by digby

Somebody’s got them scared:

Lobbyists and trade groups for Wall Street and other major banking players are pressuring lawmakers to deny Warren a seat on the powerful Senate banking committee. With the impending departures of Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) and Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Democrats have two spots to fill on the committee before the 113th Congress gavels in next year. Warren has yet said whether she wants to serve on the committee. But she would be a natural: she’s a bankruptcy law expert, she served as Congress’ lead watchdog overseeing the $700 billion bank bailout from 2008 to 2010, and she conceived of and helped launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

But the big banks are not fans of Warren, and their representatives in Washington have her in their crosshairs. Aides to two senators on the banking committee tell Mother Jones the industry has already moved to block Warren from joining the committee, which is charged with drafting legislation regulating much of the financial industry. “Downtown”—shorthand for Washington’s lobbying corridor—”has been going nuts” to keep her off the committee, another Senate aide says.

This should be very interesting to watch. Warren really bothers them. I assume they realize that a freshman Senator can’t single-handedly spoil their party, but evidently they also realize that this is no ordinary freshman Senator. This is one who was elected with a very specific portfolio, a national profile and who has some very special political gifts. And they do not want her to be the one who questions them at hearings or who has access to confidential committee documents.

What will be truly illuminating is whether her fellow Democrats agree with them.

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Krugman nails it again

by David Atkins

I had been mulling over a response to Ross Douthat’s much-discussed column, but a bit of googling showed by that Krugman had nailed much of the gist of my response already:

The truth is that while single women and members of minority groups are more insecure at any given point of time than married whites, insecurity is on the rise for everyone, driven by changes in the economy. Our industrial structure is probably less stable than it was — you can’t count on today’s big corporations to survive, let alone retain their dominance, over the course of a working lifetime. And the traditional accoutrements of a good job — a defined-benefit pension plan, a good health-care plan — have been going away across the board.

Every time you read someone extolling the dynamism of the modern economy, the virtues of risk-taking, declaring that everyone has to expect to have multiple jobs in his or her life and that you can never stop learning, etc,, etc., bear in mind that this is a portrait of an economy with no stability, no guarantees that hard work will provide a consistent living, and a constant possibility of being thrown aside simply because you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And nothing people can do in their personal lives or behavior can change this. Your church and your traditional marriage won’t guarantee the value of your 401(k), or make insurance affordable on the individual market.

So here’s the question: isn’t this exactly the kind of economy that should have a strong welfare state? Isn’t it much better to have guaranteed health care and a basic pension from Social Security rather than simply hanker for the corporate safety net that no longer exists? Might one not even argue that a bit of basic economic security would make our dynamic economy work better, by reducing the fear factor?

Now, none of this will bring back traditional mores — but that’s really a different issue. In Sweden, more than half of children are born out of wedlock — but they don’t seem to suffer much as a result, perhaps because the welfare state is so strong. Maybe we’ll go that way too. So?

Yes, the globalized economy and the great risk shift onto the middle classes has made everyone insecure. Of course it has. That’s a direct result of the policies that Douthat embraces.

But I would go even farther.

The entire liberal program is one of intervention against the depredations of oppressive private power hierarchies.

Yes, it’s true that women’s liberation means that a stronger welfare state is needed to protect women physically and economically, prevent them from needing to return to abusive partners, and generally counter the unjust dominance men have exercised for millennia. And this is bad…why?

It’s true that weakening the power of organized religion and its various oppressive norms reduces certain kinds of social support–support that comes at a very high price. And it’s true that taxpayer dollars must fill in where churches once covered some ground at a high social cost. This is also a good thing.

Of course, it’s entirely possible for a centralized state to become too oppressive, to tax too much, and to create too much stability at the expense of certain dynamism and freedoms. That’s the job of sober, reasonable conservatives: to push back against wild-eyed excesses of the left. But we’re nowhere remotely near that point in America. We have an unstable economy, with far too little social mobility, whose rewards have been given almost entirely to those at the very top.

Private power is still much too strong, abusing the weakened many to benefit the fattened few. It needs further curbing.

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